"Listen, Anthony!" I cried suddenly. "Do you hear anything—listen, man!" A faint throbbing upon the air, a pulsing beat growing louder and louder. "Do you hear it, Anthony, do you hear it?"
"No—yes—begad, Perry, it sounds like—"
"Another horse at full gallop, Anthony—and coming up behind us.
Another horseman—from the same direction!"
"Dev'lish strange, Perry. How many more of 'em?"
"There will be no more!" I exclaimed bitterly, and then, the chaise beginning to slow up, I thrust my head from the window to demand why we were stopping.
"Turnpike, sir!" answered the postboy. And peering through the haze before us I saw the tollgate, sure enough, and I turned to stare back down the road towards the second hard-riding horseman, and presently beheld a vague blur that resolved itself into a rapidly oncoming shape that swept down upon us through the swirling mist; the flutter of a long cloak, a spurred boot, a shadowy form bowed low in the saddle—all this I saw in one brief moment; then rose a hoarse shout from the eddying mist ahead; the jingle of flung coins and, lifting his animal at the tollgate, the horseman cleared it at a bound and, plunging into the haze beyond, had vanished like a phantom.
And now I was seized with a passion of haste and began to shout fevered orders at our postboy.
"Hurry—hurry! A guinea—ten guineas for your best speed! Drive, man, drive like the devil. Whip—spur!"
I remember tossing money to a hoarse-voiced toll-keeper in a fur cap, and we were off in full career, the light chaise rocking and swaying. I remember Anthony's look of surprise and my answering his half-hearted questions at random or not at all, for now I rode, my head out-thrust from the window, hearkening for the sound of galloping hoofs ahead of us.
And so at last, after an eternity as it seemed, the chaise slowed again and came to an abrupt standstill before a dimly-seen building and, peering out, I made out the sign: